Ruffled and Broken
by pdljmpr6
Summary: That's what Neal is now. A man, ruffled, broken and destroyed from the outside in. - Oneshot. Tag/reaction to Point Blank so SPOILER for that. Peter/ Neal brotherly friendship, not slash.


**A/N: **If you're reading this, you saw the episode Point Blank and you know why I wrote it. Just had to get the angst out so I could sleep! I hope you feel inclined to drop me a review and try to Enjoy. -pj

**Warning:** Spoilers for Season Two: Point Blank

**Disclaimer:** I'm not brilliant enough to be affiliated with this show in any way, shape or form.

* * *

Peter knows now that Neal gets destructive when he's well and truly upset. A physical manifestation of the emotional breakdown that happens when all the things he's trying too hard to keep hidden suddenly slam against the walls of his mind and the floodgates open. It's almost visible, the way the fear and anger and hurt and rage bubble up inside him and push him to the brink.

Or it would be if anyone was ever around to see it.

But Neal's too careful for that. Hidden too well behind those same walls and too charming smiles and believable protestations of 'fine'.

Only someone did see it. Once.

And now Mozzie's gone too.

Peter's never seen it. Not as it was happening.

But he saw the aftermath once.

It was the same day he – they – lost Mozzie. 'The Little Man' as Peter liked to call him, much the same way Mozzie would call him Suit.

It worked for them.

Worked. Past tense.

It was that same day that Peter had pried Neal's white knuckle grip off the armrests of his chair in the waiting room and gently pushed him into a cab. When Neal had turned to him, shadowed eyes and a smile and said 'I'll be fine' and insisted he could make his own way home.

Peter had done as he wasn't asked and given the Con Man some space, hoping Neal was a good enough at what he did to con himself. If for no other reason than so he could get some sleep that night.

If anyone could do it, Neal could.

But then again…

Peter had let himself into Neal's home a few hours later, just to see how the man was doing. The door to June's room had been closed, but Peter heard the sniffles as he walked past and had to pause, collecting himself, before continuing on up the stairs. The door to Neal's loft was closed but unlocked and Peter let himself in quietly.

He'd been about to call out to Neal when he didn't see his figure in the bed, when his eyes suddenly took in the state of the apartment.

And that's how he knows.

Because as he opened the door just a little wider, his eyes adjusting to the strange mixture of nighttime darkness and reflected electric light that New York always exuded, he saw it.

The devastation that Neal sometimes caused when something well and truly upset him. Ruffled him.

Broke him.

The chess set, the one Mozzie had given him, the marble and granite one that was always so impeccably kept and ready for a game, was scattered and broken on the floor.

Near the wall an immaculately forged Davinci was in tatters in it's frame having suffered the wrath of a set of wineglasses, the same ones Mozzie had so loved drinking from, that lay shattered on the floor below.

To his left an entire row of books, the ones Mozzie had recommended, had been relieved of their place on the shelves and torn to pieces, scattered on the ground.

Peter inched slack jawed into the loft, his eyes wide and his head on swivel; trying to see, to _comprehend, _the wreckage of the small space.

Everywhere he looked something lay broken, crushed, torn or destroyed. Anything that reminded it's owner of the friend - nearer to a brother - who he would never see again.

Peter couldn't wrap his head around the heartache reflected in every torn page and jagged edge.

Anything Mozzie had touched or loved lay broken. Abandoned. Irreparably damaged.

Just like Neal.

The loft almost looked like a break-in, but only if the thief hadn't found what they were looking for and decided to punish the apartment itself for the failure. And how was it that June hadn't heard the noise all this must have caused?

But then again, maybe she had.

And she hadn't known how to stop it either.

A glint of light was what finally brought Peter back to the task at hand.

Neal.

He was out on the balcony, standing troublesomely close to the edge. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, flapping slightly in the breeze, his hair tousled and unkempt. But other than that, he looked normal. Looked like Neal. Unruffled and unbroken.

He looked as _fine _as he liked to say he was, as if he'd just been standing there, drinking a glass of Merlot and someone had come in and destroyed his home unnoticed.

Then there was that flash of light again. More of a glint really, and Peter's stomach dropped to his shoes at the same time as his heart started to hammer.

"Neal," he croaked, but if the man heard him he didn't let on.

Peter isn't even sure today how he got across the room and out onto the balcony beside Neal as fast as he did, only knows that he did. It was then that Neal gave indication he knew he wasn't alone with a slight straightening of his shoulders and a minute jerk of his chin in Peter's direction.

Peter kept his eyes on him as he slowly reached out, his hands wrapping around the hilt of the gun and then snatching it back to himself with twice the speed.

The corners of Neal's mouth almost turned up in a smile, almost amused.

"I can always get another one."

Peter sighed, knowing it was true.

"I'm gonna ask you not to Neal."

It was then that Neal looked at him for the first time. The same as at the hospital his cheeks and eyes were dry, but the dark circles and pinched lines of exhaustion and pain etched around his mouth told of the grief he was going through.

"Don't ask me that Peter," he said quietly. There was a flash of something Peter didn't recognize in those blue eyes and suddenly it wasn't Neal anymore staring back at him. It was that man, the ruffled broken one who had anger and agony ripping him apart at the seams, who gazed back at him. The one who had destroyed Neal's apartment. The one that didn't hate guns and had no problem using one for the right reason.

Reasons. Plural.

Mozzie made two.

"Neal-" Peter had tried, wishing to stave off the rage he could see bubbling beneath Neal's surface.

"_No!_" Neal's shout echoed off the surrounding buildings and made both their ears hurt. Still, he continued just as loud, his voice trembling with the effort.

"No Peter. Don't ask me that. Don't _tell _me that." He shook his head, pacing away a few steps and then back again, frenetic with anger because it was easier than sorrow.

"Don't tell me I'm not like that. Not a killer. It's not true."

"Neal-" he tried again.

"It's not!" Neal whipped around and smashed his hand down into the small glass café table. It shattered with impressive noise and fanfare, scattered like diamonds at their feet. Immediately the cuts left on Neal's hand started dripping with blood, staining the small sparkling pieces crimson.

"God, Neal," Peter jumped forward, intent on tending to the injury and Neal jumped back just as quickly, stopping Peter's heart when he staggered toward the ledge, dripping blood messily onto his white shirt.

"Don't Peter." Neal said again, his voice suddenly too quiet, rough and shallow against the silence. "It's not true anymore."

Peter drug his eyes up off Neal's hand, his fresh and red blood mingling with that of Mozzie's, brown and horrible and still clinging to his skin.

It was with a start that he realized Neal was fighting, and mostly losing, a battle with tears. Neal's blue eyes grew far too bright in the florescent glow of streetlights below them, Peter forced himself to stand still.

"I may not have been a killer before," Neal continued softly, his eyes red rimmed and desperate, clinging to Peter's for dear life, "but I am now." He swallowed hard and nodded, affirming his point. "I promise you...I'll kill Julian Larson on sight."

Peter swallowed whatever words of protest he'd been about to utter against Neal being 'a killer now'. The man's words were simply too flatly spoken for him not to mean them with every ounce of his being.

"They'll send you back." He said finally and neither of them need clarification on the 'who' or 'where' of that statement.

And then Neal laughed. God help them all he _laughed. _And he shook his head wearing a smile so brittle and cold it made Peter's stomach turn. He shrugged.

"I'll let you in on a secret Peter," Neal dipped his chin and lowered his voice, mocking the idea. "I. Don't. Care."

Peter shook his head immediately. "You don't mean that."

"Try me." Neal shot back. He held his arms out to his sides gesturing vaguely at the city, at life, still giving no notice to the blood dripping from his fingertips and soaking into his shirt sleeves.

"What have I got to stay out here for Peter, huh?" He dropped his arms and shrugged again. "Kate is _dead, _Peter. She's the reason I broke out in the first place, remember? And Mozzie," he paused, just a slight hesitation when his voice broke on the man's name that Peter wouldn't even have noticed if he hadn't known Neal as well as he did, "_he_ was why I stuck around."

"What about the Bureau?" _What about me? _

"The Bureau would be glad to be rid of me. And you?" he continued, reading Peter's mind with the disturbing accuracy the agent had come to expect. "You would have chased me."

Peter finally dropped his eyes to the ground, nodding. He was right. Peter wasn't a reason to stay because Peter wasn't going anywhere. He would always be there.

Neal knew that.

They both did.

He looked back up to find all traces of humor had gone from Neal's face again. He wasn't looking at Peter anymore, but seemed to suddenly have discovered his injured hand and was holding it up into the light, staring at the torn flesh almost with fascination.

"Neal." He said, but the man didn't flinch. Peter took a few steps forward, broken glass crunching under his feet. "Neal look at me."

Neal didn't.

Again, Peter closed the distance between them with surprising speed. He grasped Neal's wrist, carefully avoiding the injuries, and tried again.

"Neal. _Look _at me."

Finally Neal's head started to tilt up and when their eyes met Peter almost gasped. Because Neal's eyes weren't shiny and too bright anymore. They were blurry. Watery. And tears were pouring down his cheeks.

Peter had never known Neal to cry, at least, not when anyone else was around to see.

"I'll kill him, Peter." Neal all but whispered, his lips trembling just slightly in the darkness as he fought the breakdown that they both knew was coming.

"For killing Kate and Moz…I'll kill him," he said, gripping the arm of Peter's jacket with his good hand.

Only this time, Peter realized, it wasn't a vow or a dark promise for revenge.

It was a plea.

Because Peter had been right all along.

Neal wasn't a killer.

And he wasn't strong enough not to kill this time.

Peter nodded. "I know."

Neal nodded back, some of his hair falling into his eyes so that he looked impossibly young.

"You'll stop me." He barely got the words out around the sobs threatening to break free and both knew it was not a statement, but a request.

Peter reached out and grasped Neal's shoulder, feeling his weight shift as he started to lose the battle with gravity, sinking toward the ground.

"I will." Peter promised, gently guiding them down until they were sitting, trying get them both as far from the broken glass on the ground as possible.

Then the sobs broke free, tearing down the last of Neal's carefully constructed walls with a ferocity and vengeance that surprised them both.

And as surely as Peter's shirt was ruined where Neal's bloodstained hands were fisted in it, Neal himself was ruined from the gaping holes left where the pieces of him that Kate and Mozzie had been given were lost forever.

All Peter could do that night was hold onto him. Hold him tight and try to hold him together. Try not to let the destruction Neal was capable of destroy Neal with it.

The kind of destruction that happens when Neal is well and truly upset.

Ruffled and Broken.

Because Peter's never seen it. Not as it was happening.

But he saw the aftermath once.

And it nearly destroyed him too.

_END_


End file.
